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THE NATIONAL BAPTIST EDUCATIONAL, \> 



CONVENTION. 






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Proceedings of the National Baptist Educational Convention, held in 
the Pierrepont street Baptist church, Brooklyn, April 19-21, 
1870. Published by the Brooklyn Baptist Social Union. Com- 
plimentary Edition. 

THE Baptist Educational Commission was formed upon two distinct 
yet related conceptions. First, that the desires and efforts of a 
limited number of persons in the direction of the establishment, en- 
dowment, and working of our institutions of higher learning, were 
not met by a corresponding popular interest in education, — such 
an interest as was required to fill them with students, and to make 
them the blessings to our families, to our churches, and to society, 
which they were intended to be. Second, that the increase of our 
ministry, not in respect to numbers alone, but in respect to aggre- 
gate intellectual force and furnishing, was below the provisions 
made and attempted for such increase in our theological seminaries, 
and below the demands arising from the condition and increase of our 
churches, and the condition and tendencies of our civilization. It 
was hence an organization to promote both education and the 
increase of the ministry. It was a very simple organization. It 
was made up of a few gentlemen who united to sustain, at their own 
expense, an appeal for an advance in popular interest in higher edu- 
cation, and an appeal for a ministry replenished and augmented ac- 
cording to the necessities of the times in which we live. It was not 
an organization in support of particular institutions of learning, 
though the gentlemen who united in forming it had given, in the 
aggregate, to the support and endowment of such institutions, some 
hundreds of thousands of dollars within the last few years. It was 
not the exponent of any new theory of education; it had no new 
notions to advance in respect to the divine calling of the ministers of 
Christ, or their training for their work. It proposed; to stir the pop- 
ular mind and heart, to spread enlightenment in respect to the value 
and importance of higher education itself, stimulating the interest 
therein of parents and of pastors, and to awaken and sustain in our 



churches a more prayerful arid earnest attention to the great question 
of their future ministry. If it should be successful ; if new thoughts 
and purposes in respect to education should so seize and hold our 
public mind generally, creating a new tendency and drift; if so the 
question of the ministry should rise to its true character as the first 
question of the instrumentalities by which the gospel is to be spread 
and its triumphs won, — then indeed would our institutions be filled, and 
be made in character and strength equal to every growing necessity, 
and then would the day of reward come for the cost of founding and 
maintaining them. It was, in a word, an attempt to promote educa- 
tion from the popular side, as an outgrowth of popular interests and 
demands, and to promote the increase of the ministry from the prayers 
of an enlightened and practical faith pervading the mass of the 
members of our churches. 

It would be doing an injustice, however, to the Baptist denomina- 
tion to intimate, or allow it to be supposed, that we were singular in 
relation to the deficiencies which it was the design of this movement 
to correct. We do not speak of comparative neglects, which it would 
be as difficult as it is unnecessary to measure. It is sufficient to say 
that Christians of other communions, like ourselves, share in the char- 
acter and the tendencies of the age. The age is material. To get 
on, to be rich, to possess and enjoy luxuries, — these are the passions 
of every nation which has felt the impulse of the time, and in this 
country the passion is intensified in the proportion in which material 
opportunities are grander, and the incentives of hopeful competition 
more exciting. It is most natural that at such a time young men 
should hurry to business with superficial intellectual preparation. 
Scientific experts are, indeed, largely in request and largely com- 
pensated, and even oratory and literature, in their higher forms, reap 
large material rewards; but it is nevertheless true that that education 
is generally most in demand which ministers most to material accu- 
mulations, and that discipline and culture are for the many quite 
undervalued. It is equally natural that under such conditions the min- 
istry must suffer,, alike as to the number and the average intellectual 
character of those who propose to enter it. The young man who 
enters the ministry with spiritual aims must separate himself from 
the prevailing worldliness of the mass of Christian people, and from 
the prevailing hopes and aspirations of the young advancing to active 
life in his own time. The vigorous and enterprising, whom worldly 
prospects incite, will, in too many cases, stifle the still small voice 
which calls them to duties and rewards which are more purely spir- 
itual, and soothe themselves into contentment in their dereliction by 



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the hope that they may be useful as Christian laymen. Inquiries in 
this and in other countries, in communions popular and in com- 
munions aristocratic, bring the common and unwelcome conviction 
> that the question of the future ministry of the Christian church, fun- 
damental and comprehensive as it is, is the one which at this time 
demands most the anxious attention of all who watch and wait for the 
coming of the kingdom of Christ. 

To say these things is not to decry the age, nor to sigh for the 
return of the times that have been. It is to say, that among the 
characteristics of the age there may be those which tend to evil ; or, 
in other words, the man in the mass, like man in the individual, may 
take into his character the bad with the good. To deny that Rome 
contained within itself, and among its chief characteristics, elements 
which ministered largely to the progress of the world, would be 
simply false and absurd ; but Rome contained likewise within itself 
the elements of its own decadence and fall. France is a nearer and 
therefore a more impressive illustration of the same truth. It is the 
business of the wise, not to attempt the impossible task of resisting 
an age, but the practicable one of guiding well the true in its ten- 
dencies, and of correcting the false. This principle it is the duty and 
the interest of all Christians to apply to the fundamental questions of 
education and the ministry. In this spirit the Baptist Educational 
Commission was organized; not as a revolutionize]:, but as an inquirer 
concerning facts and tendencies, and a guide and helper in paths of 
practicable improvement. At the time of its formation it was the 
remark of one of the most philosophical of our thinkers and writers, 
that it was the providential offspring of the hour, and that the only 
wonder, about it was that there could be found thirty men of the 
requisite insight and faith to give it form and effectiveness. It was 
the remark likewise of one of the most distinguished of American 
scholars and diplomatists, that it was the model for a general move- 
ment in the United States, in the interest of higher education. 

This Commission at the outset was local in character. Though 
contemplating a possible enlargement, it restricted the sphere of its 
operations to the states of New York and New Jersey. It proved, 
however, to have struck a chord wlrch vibrated more widely. It 
started at once a new order of discussions in the press of the denomi- 
nation, and the information which it gathered up and published from 
every quarter, primarily for effects within its own sphere^ produced 
similar effects in remoter states. This result was not singular,, nor 
was it unanticipated. The facts elicited and questions discussed were of 
common interest, and became the more an inspiration and a force by 



the magnitude of the area over which the community of interest 
existed. It has been among the chief misfortunes of the cause of 
education among the Baptists of the United States, that their enter- 
prises and labors in this cause have been to so large an extent of 
local birth and design, and so little known beyond the limits of their 
origin and operations. Unlike our missionary enterprises, the cause 
of education has lacked the momentum imparted by the massed 
interests of diverse and separated communities. The facts respecting 
the condition of local institutions might be very well known within 
the range of the circulation of local newspapers, but only vaguely 
I beyond. The facts respecting the condition of education as a popular 
►"interest had nowhere found more than a most inadequate expression 
■of amy sort. To gather up the facts, to analyze them, to organize 
'them, to set them forth in public addresses and by the press, though 
attempted under disadvantages, and accomplished only to a limited 
extent, was certain to be welcomed as the harbinger of a new era in 
the educational work of the denomination. 

Such was the order of events which preceded and gave birth to the 
National Baptist Educational Convention. It was not called until the 
. signs of a common interest in education had become clearly manifested, 
i nor until the .disposition to give that interest an adequate expression 
• had been ascertained. It had been the labor of the Educational Com- 
, mission to bring all forms of higher education into a comprehensive 
unity, — to create and stimulate the conviction that the cause of 

■ education for the denomination is not simply the cause of institu- 
tions, however important and indispensable these are, but the 

■ cause. -of popular interest and actual work in education; that it is 
i not . the cause of ministerial education alone, but that of the educa- 
tion .of the laity as truly and as imperatively; that it is not the 

■ cause of the highest education alone, such as is dispensed in theolo^i- 
i cal seminaries, universities, and colleges, and therefore of the education 

■ of a number forever limited, but, the cause of secondary education 
. as well, — the education dispensed in academies,— and bringing, there- 
fore, the first forms of higher education to the great mass forever' 

increasing; .that it is not the education of one of the sexes, but 
the education of each and of both by the highest practicable pro- 
cesses; and finally that in spirit, and method, and aim, it is the 
cause of Christian education, of that education which is the off- 
spring of Christian faith, and enfolded in the divine plans of the 
i world's redemption. In the call, the Convention was designated as 
- " a meeting of educators and friends of education, . . gathering into 
itself the widest practicable representation from, theological semina- 



ries, universities, academies, and education societies, and having for 
its object the consideration of questions of common interest, rela- 
ting to the character and work of our institutions of learning, the 
increase and increased intelligence of our ministry, and the advance- 
ment of education in the great body of our people." 

The call for the Convention was hailed with a universal welcome. 
The press of the denomination uttered one voice of encouragement. 
North, and South, and East, and West sent the heralds of coming 
delegations. It was nine years after Sumpter, and five after Appo- 
matox, but the strains in which Milton sung the world's peace,, 
required little accommodation in terms, and none whatever in senti- 
ment, to express the harmony in respect to this meeting and its 
objects, of the lately contending sections. 

No war, or battle's sound, 
Was heard the world around ; 

The idle spear and shield were high uphung ; 
The hooked chariot stood 
Unstained with hostile blood ; 

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng ; 
And kings sate still with awful eye, 
As if they knew their sovereign Lord was by. 

The Convention assembled in the Pierrepont street Baptist church, 
Brooklyn, on the 19th of April, 1870. It was not a mass meeting, 
but a meeting of appointed delegates, representing boards and fac- 
ulties, and called together therefore many of the chief educators and 
most distinguished pastors and laymen of the denomination. Dr. 
Wayland had died " without the sight," and Dr. Sears, though deeply 
interested in the purposes of the Convention, was unable to be pres- 
ent. Dr. Caswell and Prof. Stevens, whose labors as educators 
span almost the whole period since the rise of our missionary work 
gave a new impetus to the cause of education in the denomination, 
were members of the Convention, and Drs. Conant and Babcock, 
whose participation in the work of education, as teachers or other- 
wise, has been coeval with theirs, were deeply interested spectators 
of the proceedings. Of the generation of teachers next to these in 
seniority, Dr. Eaton came, wearing the laurels of the contest which 
made him immortal, and Dr. Kendrick, the great Greek, who adds 
to the wide and critical knowledge which renders him worthy of this 
title, a breadth of knowledge of philosophies and literatures seldom 
found in special scholars. Not to continue personal references, for 
which we have not space, there were present as delegates from all our 
theological seminaries, — Newton, Eochester, Hamilton, Crozer, Chi- 



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to the last, and adjourned final] 

A^gramme. The puV. st> it may be added 



and the proceedings were undisturbed I ^g or ot 

tion. Large numbers of - and Laymen, not oV 

present from abroad, and 

and New \ sed in an unusual degree the mosl 

classes of the denomination. F b of education of c 

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proceedings. Oc as a public demonstration, the Convention 

w.-.s a.a: :l:;.r. a--.;:.' a~ :'..; ,'\:;;:::.:::< --a:': a'/.;'.;:: a/a. aaa: 



hailed, leaving little to regret, and much to remember with gratu- 
lation. As an exhibition of intellectual culture and power, it was 
without an equal in the annals of the denomination, and perhaps in 
these respects has seldom been surpassed by any similar assemblage. 
The proceedings of this Convention are published in the hand- 
some volume whose title is placed at the head of this article. Before 
noticing its contents more particularly, it is proper to put upon 
record the history of the volume itself. When it was in contemplation 
to hold this convention, it was deemed necessary to make provision 
not only for a place of meeting, and for the offering of hospitality to 
the members, but for the reporting and publishing of the proceed- 
ings. All this was cheerfully undertaken by the Brooklyn Baptist 
Social Union, — an association of Baptist laymen in that city, for 
purposes of Christian acquaintanceship, and for the consideration of 
questions of practical interest, whether local or general, pertaining 
to evangelical and denominational work. This association meets 
monthly, and after the transaction of its necessary business, sits 
down to a collation, which is followed by addresses, by members or 
invited guests, on topics which may serve to stimulate and direct the 
Christian activity of its members. It was a fitting body to under- 
take the care of such a Convention, and it so fulfilled its task as to 
win and merit universal congratulations. The proceedings were pre- 
pared for the press under the supervision of the Rev. Lucius E. 
Smith, D. D., who performed his somewhat difficult task judiciously 
and well. It was the design to make the report absolutely verbatim, 
but the reporters, though of high reputation in the line of their cus- 
tomary work, were not in habits of thinking corresponding to the 
discussions, and were not always successful in catching the spirit and 
form of the speeches or remarks of members. To restore what was 
lost, by reference to his own full reports made during the Conven- 
tion, to refer to speakers themselves for corrections which their 
recollection might supply, and to omit reluctantly that which no 
process could bring to shape, imposed abounding care and responsi- 
bility upon the editor, occasioning delay in publication, and rendering 
it impossible to make the volume the perfect and imperishable pho- 
tograph of the Convention which had been designed. The report 
must fail therefore to express the vital energy, the living power, of 
that most remarkable meeting. And yet it is a monument of think- 
ing and utterance on Christian education, worthy and destined to 
endure. It records an epoch in the history of the Baptist denomi- 
nation, from which the work of education is to proceed under added 
enlightenment, and we may hope with augmented power. The 



8 

volume appears in two forms. The Social Union having published a 
complimentary edition on fine paper ; for the members of the Conven- 
tion, and for libraries, and other public uses, made over the types 
without cost to the American Baptist Educational Commission, for 
the publication by the Commission of a cheap edition for general dis- 
tribution. Of this edition there has been a large circulation, partly 
gratuitous, and partly at a merely nominal price. The demand for 
these Proceedings from every quarter of the country has been among 
the gratifying proofs of the common interest in education to which 
the Convention gave expression, and to which it has imparted a fresh 
and encouraging impulse. 

We cannot consider in detail the contents of the volume before us. 
It is made up chiefly of the papers read in the Convention, and 
the discussions to which the papers gave rise. The papers were as 
follows : On Academies, by Professor S. S. Greene, LL. D., of Brown 
University; on Education Societies, by the Rev. Gr. W. Bosworth, 
D. D.; on Scientific Studies, by President J. R. Loomis, LL. D., of the 
University at Lewisburg ; on Fellowships, by President Alvah Hovey, 

D. D., of Newton Theological Institution ; on the University of the 
Nineteenth Century, by President M. B. Anderson, LL. D., of the 
University of Rochester ; on the Denominational Press and Educa- 
tion, by the Rev. J. W. Olmstead, D. D.; on the Organization of 
Denominational Work in Education, by the Rev. Lemuel Moss, D. D.; 
on Jesuit Collegiate Instruction, by President Gr. W. Samson, D. D., 
of Columbian College ; on the Kind and Extent of Ministerial Cul- 
ture Demanded in our Time, and in our Denomination, by President 

E. G. Robinson, D. D., of the Rochester Theological Seminary ; on 
the Most Advanced Ministerial Culture as Illustrated in the Work 
of Preacher and Pastor, by President E. Dodge, D. D.,. LL. D., of 
Madison University ; and on the Demand of the Age for the Higher 
Education of Women, by President J. H. Raymond, LL. D.,of Vassar 
College. Oral addresses in lieu of written papers were delivered, 
on the Duty of Educators to lead the Cause of Education, by Presi- 
dent G. W. Northrup, D. D., of the Chicago Theological Seminary ; on 
Education in the Southern States, by Professor J. L. M. Curry, 
LL. D., of Richmond College; and on Endowment of Literary and 
Theological Institutions,, by the Rev. Edward Bright, D. D. Most of 
these papers and addresses were referred to committees, appointed 
early in the session, on Questions of Education in Academies, Pro- 
fessor William Hague, D. D., chairman; Questions of University 
Education, the Rev. Samuel L. Caldwell, D. D., chairman ; Questions 
of Theological Education, Professor James P. Boyce, D. D. ; chair- 






man; and Questions of Denominational Work in Education, Presi- 
dent Kendall Brooks, D. D., chairman. The paper on the Education 
of Women was referred to a special committee, of which President 
Clark was Chairman. The Proceedings contain the reports of all 
these committees, with the action of the Convention requesting the 
Baptist Educational Commission to assume a national name, character, 
and functions. 

These papers, addresses and reports, with the discussions to which 
they gave rise, invite analysis and criticism. Considering, however, 
that it was the writer of this article through whom these gentlemen 
were invited to the parts which constituted the leading features of 
the Convention, it would hardly be accounted fitting in him to be the 
critic of their performances. Suffice it to say that they performed 
a signal service for their brethren, for which our own and after times 
will give them thanks. Among the names which we have given, are 
those in whose absence, and without whose early and continued 
cooperation, the Convention could not have been the success which it 
proved to be. Our present office is humbler and more fitting than 
that of critic. " Having had perfect understanding of all these 
things from the very first," we choose rather the part of historian, 
and, in addition to the recital of facts, to recall to notice some of the 
more prominent characteristics of this assemblage. 

It will impress the most cursory reader that the topics which we 
have enumerated embrace every interest and form of higher educa- 
tion, and every grade of institutions in which such higher education 
is dispensed. Herein, in this comprehensive character of its aims 
and deliberations, it was peculiar in our assemblages for educational 
purposes. Brown University, first in the order of our institutions, 
established at a period when theological education was a matter of 
private tuition, was designed and set in operation with as comprehen- 
sive notions of education as then anywhere prevailed. Fifty years, 
however, had demonstrated that it was doing comparatively little to 
give us an educated ministry, which was our great practical need. 
Then it was that movements towards theological education more 
exclusively had an almost simultaneous rise in New England, New 
York, and the Middle States, and though out of these movements 
colleges and universities likewise sprung, the more comprehensive 
ends of education were always subordinated to the central and con- 
trolling idea of an educated ministry. It was in consequence of this 
that education as a practical denominational interest came to be fixed 
in the minds of our people as ministerial education, and not the edu- 
cation of our laity as well. A discourse on education in our pulpits 



10 

meant a discourse on the education of ministers, and an appeal for 
funds to promote education was an appeal for that purpose. The 
evidence of this will be found in every man's thoughtful recollection, 
and in the remarkable uniformity in the action on education taken in 
our associations, state conventions, and other deliberative bodies 
where denominational sentiment found utterance. It is not true that 
other tendencies did not reveal themselves. Such tendencies were 
manifested to a certain extent in the processes just referred to, by 
which colleges and universities, as at Waterville and Hamilton, grew 
out of movements essentially theological. In the Educational Con- 
vention held at Albany, in 1849, the most intellectual assemblage of 
Baptists ever called together from the state of New York, such ten- 
dencies, inchoate, scarcely conscious, found striking expression, and 
though out of that meeting sprang two theological seminaries and 
two universities, where it is difficult to see that more than one of 
each was required, it is unquestionable that from that time education 
took a wider range in the minds of friends of both these seats of 
learning. Perhaps in New England the denominational view of edu- 
cation was never so restricted as in some other parts of the country. 
The presence there of Brown University, the great influence of Dr. 
Wayland, and the prevailing habits of thought in New England, 
were to a certain extent safe-guards against the restriction which 
prevailed elsewhere. But there and everywhere this great, apparent 
and immediate need of the churches in respect to an educated min- 
istry, narrowed the view of education, and consequently the sphere 
of denominational activity in respect to it. It was not seen, it only 
begins now to be seen, that the narrow view is not only false in prin- 
ciple, but destructive of its own ends. There can be no such thing 
as a ministry generally well educated, for a laity not generally well 
informed. The law is unfailing, and ought to be. It is not the 
design of Christianity to raise up classes and castes, but to build up 
man. It is for this reason that universal teaching is the function of 
Christianity, and her pupils are all men, of every nation and kindred 
and tongue and people under heaven. Doing her work in the human 
soul, in the centre of intellectual and moral forces, she lifts up human 
society by enlightening and purifying the individual man, with 
no distinctions which are not found in the variety of capacities and 
opportunities. Education, as the work of the Christian church, less 
comprehensive than this, must always be attended with the mischiefs 
of maladjustment. To have an educated ministry the education of 
the laity must be carried along, pari passu. Besides, on no other 
principle of procedure can candidates for the ministry in requisite 



numbers be found. The doctrine of a divine call to the ministry is 
fundamental, and to be maintained, theoretically and practically. But 
a divine call to the ministry comes as a blessing to the churches 
in connection with the use of proper means. At present our candi- 
dates for the ministry, so far as coming from our conscious modes of 
denominational action, are young men " sought out," and educated at 
the expense of the denomination. But this process gives us, after 
the trial of it for fifty years, not more than fifty men per year, educated 
by the highest processes of our theological seminaries, in a denomi- 
nation numbering more than a million communicants, and with an 
adhering population of probably more than five millions. We speak 
correctly, therefore, when we say that in the narrow process there 
is something destructive of its own ends. Suppose our methods 
changed. Suppose our theory of education to be the highest practi- 
cable education of our whole people. Suppose our Academies to 
abound in proportion to our numbers and our wealth. Suppose our 
colleges and our universities to be filled with our young men pro- 
ceeding from these academies. Suppose all these institutions of 
higher learning to be encompassed with the prayers of our people, 
and to be the scenes of gracious visitations of the Holy Spirit : is it 
conceivable that out of these young men there should not come a 
host to fill our theological seminaries, and to preach the gospel? 
This is the experience of the Congregational churches of New Eng- 
land, and in a lesser degree, we think, of the Presbyterian churches 
elsewhere in our country, and this is the explanation of the numbers 
who fill their theological seminaries, and recruit their ministry. A 
great number of the ministers of those churches entered upon their 
studies for the simple purpose of an education to qualify them for any 
sphere of life. They may have gone to their studies converted young 
men, or they may have been converted in the revivals with which 
American academies and colleges have been so largely blessed. God 
called them to the ministry in their studies, and they became preachers 
of his gospel. We have had in the Baptist churches a limited mea- 
sure of the same happy experience. What we need is to advance to 
the full measure of it. That portion of our ministry educated by 
our highest processes will then be in nearer ratio with our wants, 
and will represent more widely the various classes which make up 
our churches, — the rich, the well-to-do, and the poor. In other words, 
the composition of the ministry will be as various as the classes who 
receive the blessings of the gospel, the only rule of composition proper 
to churches which aim to be as catholic as those of the New Testa- 
ment and as the designs of Christianity. 



12 



Lerefore wlierL so many of the intelligent ana tne 
cultivated, educators and friends of education, came together to con- 
sider educational topics of the widest comprehension. In some 
respects these topics might have been improved. But it must be 
borne in mind not only that the Convention itself was an experiment, 
but that however much of consideration and influence may have been 
accorded to the mind charged with the duty and responsibility of 
organizing the meeting, much was to be accorded in return to the 
individual gentlemen who had consented to share in the experimental 
undertaking. This considered, it is believed that the topics may 
justly claim approval as embracing substantially the educational 
interests of the denomination, whether as relating to the education of 
the ministry or of the laity, of man or of woman, whether as* relating 
to institutions of learning, or to the popular interest in education 
without which institutions are but as the armour of dead men hung 
in deserted halls. 

There is another view of this Convention, nearly related to the 
foregoing, which will impress the mind of the reader of these Proceed- 
ings : the progress of fifty years. We have spoken freely of the 
defects of our processes. Defective, however, as they have been, and 
important as it is that they be amended, to look only at their defects 
would be to fail to recognize that benign Providence which has given 
to us occasions of thanksgiving and hope. It is easy to conjecture 
what might have been, if Dr. Manning had had immediate successors. 
In his day it was the habit to bring Brown University into relations 
with all American Baptists. The evidences of this are numerous 
and incontrovertible. Dr. Maxcy, a brilliant youth, endowed with 
wonderful powers of oratory, on which even in our day old men, his 
pupils, have been wont to dwell with rapture, took the chair which 
Manning's death had made vacant, but his brief presidency failed to in- 
crease the bonds which bound the University to the denomination which 
had given it birth. Then came the long administration of Dr. Messer, 
an able man, cool, astute, of questionable orthodoxy, and wanting, 
in every essential respect, the qualities to make him a denominational 
leader. In his day came the grand opportunity of the University. 
Harvard in going to the Unitarians, had lost the confidence of the 
orthodox. Yale was remote, and as yet but weak. The Congre- 
gationalists of Massachusetts sent their sons in large numbers to 
Brown. A quarter of a century ago many of the highest civic 
stations of Massachusetts were filled by sons of Brown, pupils of 
Messer ; — Metcalf, Morton, Eeed, Forbes, Mann, Barton, Davis, Kin- 
nicott and Mellen, are names which we readily recall. Of seventy 



'3 

pastors of the Mendon (Congregational) Association, down to 1851, 
graduates of colleges, twenty-one were graduates of Brown, Yale 
having furnished seventeen, and Harvard nine. Of eighty-seven 
licentiates down to the same year, graduates of colleges, thirty-two 
were graduates of Brown. For the time, the classes were large. 
Forty seven graduated in 1814. In this administration, at such a 
time, when a new impulse came to the denomination in respect to 
education, while the University had a patronage which the rise of 
Amherst was destined to withdraw, it needed at its head a leader, to 
bind to it, as in the days of Manning, the Baptists of the Middle 
States, and make it for a century the powerful centre of education 
for the denomination. The leader was wanting, and the opportunity 
passed. Messer w T as unable to hold even New England. His sun 
declined on educational movements inaugurated in Maine, New York, 
Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, destined to issue in other 
colleges and universities under the patronage of the denomination. 

This period, as contrasted with the present, was most fittingly 
brought to the notice of the Convention, in remarks of Dr. Caswell, 
and we are justified in extending the contrast, that we may see 
what God hath wrought. Fifty years had elapsed, when this Con- 
vention assembled, since the founding of Waterville College, now 
Colby University, and Columbian College, the first of our colleges 
after Brown. Waterville graduated its first class of two in 1822, 
with the illustrious name of George Dana Boardman to begin the 
list of its Alumni ; and Columbian its first class of three in 1824, 
enrolling in that humble list the honored name of James D. Knowles. 
Both these colleges began their career in the feebleness of institutions 
without endowments, and both were destined to long struggles with 
poverty. Brown, like Yale, had performed its honorable work by 
force of the ability in teaching of its. instructors, and without the aid 
of more than the most inconsiderable endowments. Dr. Way land 
came to the presidency of Brown in 1827, finding that university, 
when considerably more than the first half century of its history 
had passed away, with only its two college buildings, University 
Hall and Hope College, its nearly worthless house for the President, 
its absolutely worthless philosophical apparatus, a meagre library, 
worthless as a working library for college purposes, and endowment 
funds amounting to no more than about thirty-four thousand dollars. 
Attempts had been made to establish theological seminaries in New 
York city and in Philadelphia, both of which had proved abortive. 
The attempt to establish a theological school in Waterville had 
issued in the feeble college. An humble beginning, whose endow- 



14 

merits were poverty and consecrated work, had been made at Hamil- 
ton, and was destined to endure. Newton Theological Institution was 
organized in 1825, its original land and buildings, in order for use, 
costing seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight dollars. It 
graduated in 1826 its first class of two, the late Dr. Eli B. Smith, 
long known as a successful educator, and the Kev. John E. Weston, 
whose calamitous death early transferred him to a higher sphere, 
but whose name connects itself to-day with our advanced work in 
theological education, in the person of his son, Dr. Weston, of Crozer. 
So we entered on the half century which the period of the Brooklyn 
convention closed. How different now the view. Brown has added 
to its buildings, Manning Hall, and Rhode Island College, the Presi- 
dent's house and the Laboratory ; its apparatus has been brought into 
proximate accord with the requisitions of the time, and its library 
of thirty-eight thousand volumes ranks among the best for univer- 
sity purposes. Its funds have advanced from thirty-four thousand 
dollars, in 1827, to five hundred and nine thousand four hundred 
and eighty-three dollars and twenty-six cents, in 1870. The pro- 
perty and endowments of Brown University must at the present 
time be estimated at considerably more than a million of dollars. 
Waterville, out of the poverty of fifty years ago, has risen to com- 
parative independence in a fortune which, without precise information, 
we suppose to be four hundred thousand dollars. If, as we do not 
doubt, the new subscription to the funds of Newton, already in pro- 
gress when the Convention was held, shall be fully completed when 
this article issues from the press, the property and endowments of 
Newton will have risen from eight thousand dollars in 1825, to a 
half a million in 1871. If to these great sums the amounts gathered 
up in the buildings and endowments of academies be added, the total 
increase, in the last fifty years, of funds and property in our educa- 
tional institutions in New England, must be more than two millions 
of dollars. It is not all from the liberality of our own people. We 
share in a greater or less degree the government and the honor which 
attaches to Brown University, with others, and among these have 
been found liberal benefactors and patrons ; and it must be considered 
likewise that accretions to the value of grounds and buildings have 
come with the progress of the country, and the depreciation of money. 
With every abatement, however, it is an advance to awaken thought- 
fulness and hope. If we pass from New England to New York we 
find not much less than a million of dollars accumulated in the Uni- 
versities and Theological Seminaries of Hamilton and Rochester, and 
this chiefly within the last twenty years. If we pass to Pennsylvania 



'5 

we find Lewisburg and Crozer, the offspring of the same period, with 
aggregate funds and properties, we presume, approximating three- 
fourths of a million. Columbian, in the latter part of the half cen- 
tury, has emerged from its gloom to prosperity, with an inheritance, 
which we have not means of estimating, in its buildings, but in these 
it has a considerable property, and in its lands, which the extending 
metropolis already invades, the provision of substantial endowment. 
We have not the space to extend this survey beyond the territorial 
limits of the educational labors of half a century ago, to the West, 
where rising colleges and the Theological Seminary at Chicago, 
attest the nascent interest in education of younger communities ; nor 
to the South, where from the ashes of the war there is appearing the 
resurrection of institutions which had been planted and fostered by 
kindred, faith, and hope and zeal. Admit that we have erred in 
colleges too many, and that not a few are weak, with no certain 
prospects of strength or rank ; admit that not one, North, or South, 
or East, or West, has means for the enlargement of its operations to 
the breadth of present demands; admit that some of those most 
advanced are even in painful need of larger endowments : and still 
will it be true that the record of half a century, marked by contrasts 
such as we have named, is itself an inspiration, an occasion for grati- 
tude, and a prophecy and a pledge which, under God, shall not fail 
us, of better things to come. Admit, too, that we have erred in 
theological seminaries too many ; and still shall we find hope and 
courage in the character and extent of our achievements in respect 
to them. With a more specific work than our colleges, they are, in 
their means and furnishings, in advance of the colleges, some of them 
having attained to ease, and comfort, and independence in their work. 
Behold Newton, and Hamilton, and Eochester, and Crozer, and Chi- 
cago, and Greenville, with their lands, buildings, libraries, and 
endowments, with nearly or quite twenty-five teachers, all qualified 
by discipline and learning, and many of them holding high rank in 
the scholarship and thinking of the time, dispensing a culture ex- 
ceeded by no institutions of their class in the world, and compare 
them with the humble, landless, houseless, bookless beginnings of 
Chaplin and Chapin in Waterville, of Hascall and the elder Ken- 
drick in Hamilton, of Stanford and Matclay in New York, and of 
Staughton in Philadelphia, and the achievements of the half century 
seem more like the dreams of romance than the record of the stern 
realities of life. We ought to cover ourselves with shame if we were 
capable of ingratitude or despondency. True, good men have been 
sacrificed in the process, good men have died without witnessing on 



\6 

earth the triumphs of their labors, but every successive generation 
of good men will still find occasions for sacrifice, and will die with 
hopes unfulfilled. The world will not be finished in our day, and the 
noble of earth will toil and suffer till the Lord shall come in his glory. 
But the personal resume, suggested by the remarks of Dr. Caswell, 
is not less striking. Dr. Caswell, graduating in 1822, went imme- 
diately to join the faculty of Columbian College, Washington. There 
he met Professor Irah Chase, then teaching Latin and Greek and 
Biblical Interpretation in the infant college. " He had gone through 
the regular course of theological studies in Andover," said Dr. Cas- 
well. " He was among the very few men in our denomination who had 
enjoyed such advantages. And, in fact, he was the only one of whom 
I had any knowledge at the time, who had received the benefit of a 
systematic training in theology and exegesis." Theological semi- 
naries were at that time a novelty, and it is not particularly strange 
that few of our ministers had enjoyed their advantages. Two Ver- 
mont youths, Irah Chase and Alvah Woods, and one Boston youth, 
Henry J. Bipley, were the very first to find their way to the Baptist 
ministry through the seminary course added to that of the univer- 
sity. University students had taken theology under private tuition. 
It would have been a point of greater interest if Dr. Caswell could 
have told us how many of our ministers at that time were college 
graduates. We have sought in vain for signs of an average of one 
a year in the first fifty years of Brown, 1 and we have no thought 
that there were as many as fifty, whether from that or other colleges, 
in the United States in 1822. We distinctly remember that thirteen 
were all the Doctors of Divinity who could be reckoned up a dozen 
years later. At the end of the half century under review, more 
young men enter the Baptist ministry annually, through the most 
advanced literary and theological courses of our time, than had been 
graduated by Brown in the first fifty years of its history, or than 
could be found in the United States in 1822. This is progress. We 
leave the ratio, taking into account the increase in the number of our 
churches and members, to be calculated by those who have the 
leisure. Nor is this all. The half century has been illustrious for 
the names of Christian scholars and preachers, the product of this 
period, who, under God, have placed the scholarship and the pulpit 
of our educated men in the rank with the best of the age. Concede 
that we are wanting deplorably in the number of young men, candi- 
dates for our ministry through the processes of college and seminary 

1 Thirty-four certainly, and two or three doubtfully, are all which the most faithful inquiry 
enables us to identify. »' 



7 

training, — concede that the demand for preachers of culture and 
power was never so great among us, relatively to the supply, as now, — 
concede all this, and then let it be remembered that this demand is 
itself the product of the wonderful changes of half a century, and 
let it cheer us that we advance to our work on the vantage ground / 
which this astonishing history has given us. 

Nor is the progress less marked in respect to the education of our 
laity. "Without being able to verify our statements, we venture to 
express the belief that there are more students from Baptist families 
in Brown University to day, than were found in it in any fifteen 
or twenty years of its first half century; and we should not be sur- 
prised to know that the number of such students now annually grad- 
uating from the colleges of the denomination throughout the country, 
would reach very nearly the total number of such graduations in the 
half century when Brown was our only college. We say this remem- 
bering the increase of the national population, and of the population 
of our own faith. We say this with the deepest sense of our present 
short comings, with the profound and sorrowful conviction of paren- 
tal and pastoral remissness in respect to the education of young men, 
but with the belief that every consideration of gratitude for the past 
and of hope for the future, calls on us to remember how grand is the 
progress which it has pleased God to give us. 

And here it is worthy to be noted, in passing, that the intelli- 
gence of the laity of no denomination is to be measured solely by 
the progress and patronage of its own institutions. The facilities of 
public education are greatly increased, and in the higher institutions 
of the country, whether for young men or for young women, the 
young of different denominations of Christians are more or less inter- 
mingled. Of our ministry even, many were educated in colleges, 
and some in theological seminaries, not our own. In our turn, we 
educate in our colleges and seminaries ministers of other denomina- 
tions. There are many occasions which make this intermingling a 
necessity, and in so far it is no occasion of regret. It promotes alike 
the fellowship of letters, and the fellowship of Christianity. It tends 
to make the most intelligent of our population homogeneous in 
character. But it is a point most seriously open to question, whether, 
though we are accounted the strictest of the sects, we have not in 
fact been accustomed to diffuse our patronage, to a neglect of our 
own institutions, which has been oftentimes little less than criminal. 
A fault in the maladjustment of our institutions, to which we shall 
presently refer, will explain this diffusion of patronage in part, but 
the maladjustment itself may have been in no small degree owing to 



i8 

this habit. Certain we are that if we had more conscientiously 
patronized our own institutions, those institutions would have been 
more nearly in accord with our needs, and far stronger than they are. 
It is a shame to us if the question ever arises whether there are or 
can be those better than our own, and that question will be heard of 
no more when the loyalty of our people to the institutions which we 
rear shall inspire us with a proper interest in their strength and 
usefulness. We need a great deal more of education among us, and 
a great deal more which springs from our own sources. "We need in 
all our congregations .the social influence and power of a large fellow- 
ship of education. An educated class, not held by personal convic- 
tion of the strongest kind, will go for sympathy into other connec- 
tions where they find it. It is of no use to deplore the fact; the 
duty is to find a remedy, and that remedy is the simple one of a 
wider diffusion of high education, in institutions reared by ourselves, 
and advanced to the highest character of the times in which we live. 
These' last statements are the natural introduction to thoughts less 
agreeable, suggested by the Proceedings before us, but most impor- 
tant to be- borne in mind. Here were represented six 1 theological semi- 
naries, which, though opening their doors for all comers who are able 
to take the whole or parts of their courses, have their courses specially 
adjusted to the character and needs of graduates of colleges. That is 
to say, the course proper is the course for such graduates. All else 
is, to a certain extent, grace, concession. Possibly Greenville should 
be regarded' as an exception. Its system is peculiar. Aiming to be 
as comprehensive in its range of work as the divine vocations to the 
ministry, it creates divisions into schools, as few or as many of which 
may be taken as the diverse character and progress of students may 
require, a certain number of the schools being required as conditions 
of graduation with highest honors. The discussion on questions 
suggested by the Greenville system constituted the most brilliant 
of the debates of the Convention, a discussion the brilliancy of which 
has not been preserved. But even at Greenville, as elsewhere, the 
crown of all is the course for graduates, and for this, preparation is 
made in the quality of the professors, and in the libraries which are 
in process of accumulation. Under this view the seminaries stand 
before the public, and are held in the public estimation. They are 
professional schools beyond the college, and as President Anderson 
very justly and forcibly remarked in one of his discussions, they 
alone preserve a high demand for preparation for professional study. 

1 We do not reckon theological departments of colleges, most of which are now happily 
suspended. 



Law schools, medical schools, and scientific schools, content them- 
selves with any measure of intellectual preparation which they 
can find. Theological seminaries alone, so far as we know, exact 
for their highest courses the preparation of a university course, or 
its equivalent. Of such seminaries, including Greenville, we have 
six, — dispensing the highest education of the ministerial profession, 
an education far beyond that required by any denomination in 
England, including the Established church, with its Universities of 
Oxford and Cambridge. From six theological seminaries, repre- 
sented in the Convention, we then turn to thirteen colleges and uni- 
versities for the education of young men, and to four exclusively for 
young women, — seventeen in all. These vary very greatly in 
strength and resources, and in the quality of the education which 
they dispense. Many of them have academic or preparatory de- 
partments, and in point of fact they range from academies with orna- 
mental crowns in the shape of a college course, up to colleges and 
universities dispensing the best education. But they profess to be 
colleges, and invite a patronage, either local in no sense whatever, 
or local in no such restricted sense as generally applies to academies 
proper. They all assume the character and functions of colleges. 
From these seventeen colleges and universities, we turn finally to 
the academies represented, and we find nine, of which one should be 
omitted altogether, — eight therefore in fact. If we re-survey these 
institutions, as to comparative strength and resources, we shall find, 
so nearly as we are able to conjecture, in the six theological semi- 
naries, an amount of property, including endowments, of the present 
value of from one million two hundred to one million five hundred 
thousand dollars ; in the seventeen colleges from three to four mil- 
lions ; and in the eight academies from four hundred thousand to five 
hundred thousand dollars. Assuming that the Newton subscription 
is filled, as in this calculation we do assume, Newton is fairly pro- 
vided for so far as present necessities go ; Crozer is of course provided 
for, in its actual possessions and in the care of the honored family 
whose name it bears ; Hamilton has, we believe, a provision deemed 
adequate for the present; Rochester requires an addition to its funds, 
which it is hoped will not long be delayed ; and Chicago and Greenville 
are imperatively demanding a material increase. All things con- 
sidered, the strength of our provisions for educational work lies in 
our theological seminaries. We have no university or college 
whose provision^ for the work now in hand, or required to be done, 
is for one moment to be compared with the pecuniary preparation for 
their work of Newton or Crozer or Hamilton. Nothing in educa- 



20 

tion is a fixed quantity, and a theological seminary which was fin- 
ished would require to be begun again from the foundations. But 
the demands for the expansion of educational processes can never be 
in professional schools, unless in schools of discovery like those of sci- 
ence, what they are in universities and colleges, whose range must 
forever fill the widening sphere of liberal education. It is true, we 
believe, that the income from endowments and tuition at Brown and 
Madison is equal to the annual expenditure, and this may be true at 
Colby, but immediate additions to endowments for present work are 
required at Rochester, Columbian, and elsewhere; and a very large 
sum is necessary at Chicago to remove from, that university men- 
acing danger. There is a divinity which shapes the ends of univer- 
sities, as of individuals, rough hew them how we will. There are 
currents in human affairs as irresistible as the floods of Niagara. 
There is a drift in education in this country. There is success and 
honor for every college which does good work, but some greater than 
others, in resources, in patronage, in range of instruction, and in 
influence on the world, is a destiny as sure as the course of the stars. 
There will be great universities, whether Christian men make them 
and hold them fast to Christian teaching or not ; some Christian 
denominations will recognize that destiny and move to meet it, 
whether Baptists do so or not; and there will be great crowds of young 
men, hedged in by no lines of county or state, knowing neither 
South nor North nor East nor "West, who will be drawn to these 
universities by instincts and motives which no analysis can reach, 
and no arguments control. If our colleges would fall in with this 
drift, and woe betides them if they do not, onward and higher must 
be their everlasting motto. The rejuvenation of Harvard by an ex- 
pansion of its range of instruction in literature and science, rendered 
possible, consistently with the conservation of disciplinary studies, 
by the increase of the terms of admission already announced, is 
herald of new distinctions in American colleges, destined to impose 
new burdens on their treasuries. We welcome the honorable emula- 
tion. We desire to see Brown, and Rochester, and Madison, and the 
rest, pushed in their work, and in the demands which they make on 
the munificence of their friends. This will raise all to a higher 
sphere, and if only a few attain the highest distinctions, that will be 
a result in harmony with the ordinary emulations of human life. 
" They which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize." 
Some of our universities are in condition, if only they could receive 
the necessary funds, to move with an equal step with the best in this 
line of destiny. But not one of them can do it with less than an 



21 

addition of half a million to its funds within the next ten years. It 
is millions which we need in our colleges and universities to-day for 
present work, and in that early coming future in which without the 
expansion of our most advanced institutions we must find ourselves 
in an inferior position among the educational forces of our country. 

We are less concerned about our colleges, however, than about our 
academies. In this apartment the- Proceedings before us betray bit- 
terly our deficiency. Here we are weakest. We know of no academy, 
under the patronage of the denomination, which has more than a 
nominal endowment. This constitutes the maladjustment of our 
institutions to which we have referred. Our institutions are strongest 
in proportion as they are are removed from the great body of our 
people. Our theological seminaries, designed necessarily for a limited 
though most important class, are first in strength; next are our 
colleges and universities, designed for greatly larger, but still limited 
numbers; least of all are our academies, whose function it is to bring 
the first grades of higher education near to the homes, and within 
the means of the great mass. This maladjustment brings its punish- 
ment, in the meagre number of students in our colleges for the 
want of academies from which they may proceed, and in the small 
number of students in our theological seminaries for the want 
of students from the colleges. We have attempted to achieve 
impossibilities. The system of American education is a pyramid, 
having its base in the all-comprehending sphere of public instruction. 
Next to this stand the academies, themselves the highest to which 
the greater number who rise above the sphere of public instruction 
can go, but the institutions in which multitudes find the inspiration 
which carries them to the still higher stage where are found the 
colleges and universities. Still above this, for the comparatively 
few, are the professional schools, including schools of theology. The 
natural place at which to begin the erection of a pyramid is at 
its base. We have attempted to build from the apex. It is told, to 
illustrate the punctuality of labor to quit at the hour, that an 
Irishman having his pick-axe lifted in the air when the clock began 
striking for twelve, left it there till the hour came for resuming work. 
The story of his performance is little less absurd than the attempt to 
construct the educational pyramid by laying the apex in mid air, 
and proceeding thence downward to the foundation. 

It is no surprising matter therefore that the discussion which arose 
on the paper on academies, was among the most interesting and im- 
portant in the Convention, nor that that paper, and the discussion 
thereon arising, have given a new tone to the thoughts and hopes of 



22 

our people widely throughout the country. We want no more 
theological seminaries, now, nor conceiveably within the next hundred 
years, — we want only that what we have be made strong; we want 
no more colleges at present, but we want all which we have raised to 
higher tone, capacity, and influence, some of them blooming and 
ripening into universities of the highest order; we want academies 
multiplied, with good buildings, good apparatus, and good endowments, 
inferior to none which the country boasts, and accessible universally 
to our sons and daughters. This will be to adjust the machinery of 
education by due proportions, and out of such an adjustment, so far 
as institutions are concerned, and by no other means whatever, will 
come the solution of the problem of an educated people. We must 
have academies, or our whole superstructure must fail and disappoint 
us. In relation to this we shall do well to learn from our Methodist 
brethren, who have made their academies more their specialty in 
education, and who are reaping the reward. 

We are transcending the limits which we had assigned for ourselves, 
and must restrict what we have to say upon our only remaining topic 
within narrow space. It will be observed that the practical question 
of our denominational work in education occupied very prominently 
the attention of the Convention, and that while it indicated a desire 
to place the cause of education in its proper place in our denomina- 
tional activities, it showed likewise that further ripeness of view was 
necessary in order to unanimity in respect to methods and ends. The 
simple expedient was adopted of attempting by means of the enlarge- 
ment of the functions of the Educational Commission, to awaken the 
minds of our people generally to a higher interest in education ; 
leaving more definite measures to future determination. All things 
considered, the largest progress in this direction which could reason- 
ably have been expected, was made. But just here lies one of the 
chief practical problems of our future. The existence of institutions 
which have come into being, wisely or unwisely, and which have 
their own fixed methods of operation, must be respected, — the ten- 
dencies of our people to act from considerations of state boundaries 
and from local habits, must be accepted as facts, likely always to have 
more or less of influence; and these are causes which may forever 
prevent our working according to plans which are essentially the 
wisest and most effective for the good of the whole. We can have 
no centralized force in education which shall interfere with prescribed 
or local rights and liberties. It does not follow, however, that we 
can do nothing to bring our work into unity, and to give to it the 
force of a great common cause. We work in nothing else so dis- 



^3 

jointedly as in education. We have no common counsels, no common 
organs, as in the work of missions. How great a gain it would be to 
the cause of education if we had these, was indicated by the force 
which attached to the opinions and action of the National Convention 
at Brooklyn, on the single subject of academies. Nobody's liberty is 
invaded, but new thoughts are stirred, and the cause of education in 
that department receives a new, and, we may hope, an enduring 
stimulus. He who should be able to organize our whole educational 
work, conserving and setting forward what is, and so enlightening 
and directing our public mind that what springs forth in the future 
from our uninvaded freedom, and from our spontaneities, shall be 
wiser and better adjusted, would confer on our people benefits too 
large for human admeasurement. If educators shall be leaders of 
education, if they shall come universally to the distinct consciousness 
that they are not to limit the direct influence and power of their 
culture to the classes taught in their rooms, but are to use it in edu- 
cating the people to an appreciation of education, a most important 
step will have been gained. Dr. Wayland was a man so grand in his 
proportions that one hesitates to indicate how he might have been 
grander in his work, but with deference and veneration we express the 
opinion that Dr. Wayland, though he stood foremost among educators, 
would even as such have been greater, if more of the great power of 
his life had been expended in rallying his brethren to better work in 
education. If pastors shall take up education as part of pastoral 
care, applying in public instruction and in private influence the argu- 
ments which lead ministers as a class to educate their own children 
better than the children of any other class are educated, inspiring 
with lofty aspirations the mother who rocks the cradle of her child, 
and the father who sometimes takes an hour from worldly care to fore- 
cast the destiny of his son, we shall have gained another step still 
farther in advance, and pledge of indefinite progress. How can pastors 
fail to do this ? After their fashion, and a wretched one it is, the priests 
of Eome will have an eye to the education of the children of their 
church. It was John Knox who, on the basis of the schools of Scotland 
as he found them, gave to the education of Scotland the impulse 
and the type which have made the Presbyterian clergy of that land 
the guardians of its intellectual culture, and the land itself the home 
of a civilization as advanced as the world has seen. The Congrega- 
tional clergy of New England followed their example, and there is 
not a foot of soil over which our flag waves which has not felt the 
influence of their schools. No function more certainly belongs to the 
ministers of Christianity than the care of education. In the end, 



2 4 

that form of faith which educates the people will have the pe 
And finally, if under these healthful influences of educators 
pastors, the common Christian mind, advancing in piety and in i 
ligence, shall see that the enduring inheritance to be transmits 
children is that only which is found in intellectual and moral 
religious character, that to live best for children is to train them 
then shall come the day when our institutions will be strong in 
resources which an intelligent and consecrated people have 
apart for purposes of education, and the day of our struggles 
stinted means for great work will have passed away. How to orgi 
for this renovated sentiment, how to promote it, this is our c 
tion. The present writer, whose humble labors in this direction 
but incipient and must be brief, was anxious, at the Conventio: 
cast this task upon one younger and stronger, with prospect of y 
in which to carry it to proximately satisfactory results. This, 
was not permitted him. In pursuance of the recommendatior 
the Convention, the Baptist Educational Commission became "A: 
ican," and assumed functions commensurate with the title. As 
quested by the Convention, it has proceeded to call local convenl 
of similar character, of which two or three are just now to be 1 
In due time perhaps another National Convention will be called, 
the question will then come to its ultimate solution whether Amer 
Baptists will give to their work in education the stimulus and pc 
of a common cause. 

Sew all S. Cuttin 

Bkooklyn, N. Y. 



